Gelso, Brett R.Fox, John A.Peterson, Jeffrey M.2012-10-162012-10-162012-10-16http://hdl.handle.net/2097/14855We survey landowners to investigate the costs associated with the presence of permanent or seasonal wetland areas in cropland. We find, as predicted by our conceptual model, that dispersion of wetland areas imposes substantial inconvenience costs for producers but that costs respond nonlinearly and irregularly to changes in the frequency of hydration. Producer attitudes toward conservation and environmental regulation have a significant impact on perceived costs, as do some demographic attributes. The analysis suggests that incentives to aggregate dispersed wetlands into larger contiguous areas could benefit landowners while at the same time provide a net increase in wetland area.This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in American Journal of Agricultural Economics following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version - Gelso, B. R., Fox, J. A., & Peterson, J. M. (2008). Farmers' perceived costs of wetlands: Effects of wetland size, hydration, and dispersion. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 90(1), 172-185 - is available online at: http://ajae.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/1/172.full.pdf+htmlPerceived costsWetlandsArticle (author version)